Introduction

There are about 60 million refugees in our world. Most of these refugees are coming from Syria; which more than half of their country is displaced.In this project, we are going to learn what's the cause of the refugee crisis and what other people are doing about it.

Consensus to Simulation

Our original idea for festival del sol was to have an exhibit, where people would walk around and see our research papers and can ask questions to the students. Our team took a field trip to Balboa Park to model of one of their exhibits they have about race.We then had a socratic seminar as a class and discussed whether to keep the idea of an exhibit or not. As a class, we made a consensus of throwing the exhibit idea out. We wanted an interaction with the audience, not a place where you just walk around. We came up with the idea of a simulation, where the audience becomes the refugee traveling to find settlement.

This is the Exhibit of Race from the Museum of Man.

Mapping Refugees

My partner and I read an article about our refugee and had to create a character sheet and a flow chart of their journey. We got their biggest events and added it into their flow chart. Each student created their own character; and these character sheets will be given to the audience at the night of exhibition. They will act in character and with their information as they will try to settle in a country.

We also wrote their event sequence on the white board and saw every refugee's journey.

The class also mapped their refugee's journey on the map.

Daily Handouts

​Every day when we walk into humanities, we receive a daily handout which has tasks for us to complete.

"Remember What We Know - Single-Station Playlets - Work Time"​

​The handout we received on April 7th is about reviewing over what we have learned about refugees throughout the project. I feel this handout was the most useful to me because I had to go back to my research and combine all the information onto this handout. We answered questions such as what started the Syrian civil war?

Simulation Models

On February 7th, ​we got a handout about analyzing some simulations. We evaluated seven mini simulations, and we used these models for influence on our simulation.

Station Research

My country during this project was Denmark and Sweden. Here is the link to my station research document, click here. In this document, I contributed to this document by adding the economy and the diseases in Denmark and Sweden. What I remember while doing my research was searching up the economics for each country and what they provide to their citizens. I also searched up the common diseases; I found it extremely easy to find this information because these are hard facts. Next time I will do research, I will keep in mind to use key words.

Vision for our Station

In the Vision for our Station document, it was used to have a visualization of what our country's station would look like. Here is the link to the document, click here. Nathaniel and I found pictures from the borders of Denmark and Sweden to get a sense of what the borders looks like. We also came up with a general idea of what would happen when a refugee arrives in our country. Our station hasn't changed a lot since the making of this document, we stuck with this idea but just improved on it such as adding a walk to Sweden.

Designing our Station

The station design document is the final step we took in order to create our station for the simulation. Here is the link to the document, click here. What my part in this document was the create the Station Pathways and the Detailed Description of each Scenario. Those parts describe the process of the audience when they enter our station. It took a long time to finish the Detailed Description of each Scenario because I had to do research so my information can be true and I had to create a story; so that would be what I'm most proud of in this document. I felt passionate about my work and that made my simulation feel real to the audience. The key elements we used from our country's response to refugees were: to take away about 1,000 Danish kroners, and letting a few amount of refugees in our country.

My character was made by my group member, Nathaniel, because I was working a lot of the Detailed Description of each Scenario and I didn't have time to create my character, but thanks to him it was finished. My character name is Aaron Strand who is a resettlement authority. His grandparents were refugees in World War II; and they would always tell him stories about how it was living as a refugee. He now wanted to help people in the same situation his grandparents were in. So acting in this character was pretty easy, all I had to do was to be nice and compassionate towards the refugees. ​

Play test One

Our first play test we did as a team was performed outside by the canyon. I remember it was our very first simulation so everyone was clueless of what was happening. After we finished the play test, we know the team had to improve a lot. My group and I realized we needed more props and more physical things such as an application paper.

Play test Two

​For our second play test, my group and I had created applications for the refugees to fill out. When the resettlement authorities receive the application, they will either reject or accept the refugee into our country based off of what's in the application. As a group we did pretty good, but we wanted it to be better. We did further research and found out that police escorted refugees to Sweden if they do not want to settle in Denmark. With that information, we added that to our simulation.

Single-Station Play test

In Humanities class, we performed mini play tests; one country/group would set up their station and the students would go through our simulation.

Here is AJ and myself looking over the refugee's application to see if the can settle in our country, Denmark.

From this mini simulation, we learned that everything was going really good, better than we had expected. Litzye was filling out the applications for the refugees, AJ and I looking over the applications to see whether they can be accepted, and Abril was taking the people who wanted citizenship in Sweden. Everything went perfect. No changes were needed.

​We also did a play test with the 9th graders, which didn't go too well for us because no one came to our station. We had no time so everyone had left to their next class.

Play test with Sophomores

​The same exact thing with the 9th graders for the sophomores, we had no time. My group had only one refugee come to our country, we needed more time for the simulation. So we did not learn anything from that play test.

Essay Quiz

By the end of this project, we would have the ability to have a one hour long conversation on the radio about the refugee crisis. To depict this, we had to write an essay about the refugee crisis. The question I decided to answer was, what country has affected the refugee crisis and how? On the right is the essay I wrote. Everyone that lives in San Diego and is 14 years or older should know that Syria is currently having a huge refugee crisis. More than half of the citizens in Syria are displaced. One of the reasons being ISIS, they are taking over Syria for the intention to make an Islamic State. This forces Syrians to move out and find settlement elsewhere.

The Simulation

The simulation was amazing! Everyone enjoyed it, everyone was in their character. One refugee said to me, "Wow, Denmark is way better than Germany. You got the view and all the benefits!" That made me feel proud of my work, and all the hard work lead to so many people learning about the refugee crisis; not by an exhibit but by a simulation. A cool thing that my group that might've gotten unrecognized was that we escorted people to Sweden if they wish to settle there. If I were to give advice to teachers about creating a simulation, it would be to: make every station connected, and the manage the simulation but do not take over it. Advice for students is simple: do your research so your information is true, and to work hard. ​Something I learned outside of the project was, if you are working in a group, make sure to have everyone in check.